While they expected the descent of the tardy angel, the doors were
broken with axes; and as the Turks encountered no resistance, their
bloodless hands were employed in selecting and securing the multitude of
their prisoners. Youth, beauty, and the appearance of wealth, attracted
their choice; and the right of property was decided among themselves by
a prior seizure, by personal strength, and by the authority of command.
In the space of an hour, the male captives were bound with cords, the
females with their veils and girdles. The senators were linked with
their slaves; the prelates, with the porters of the church; and young
men of the plebeian class, with noble maids, whose faces had been
invisible to the sun and their nearest kindred. In this common
captivity, the ranks of society were confounded; the ties of nature were
cut asunder; and the inexorable soldier was careless of the father's
groans, the tears of the mother, and the lamentations of the children.
The loudest in their wailings were the nuns, who were torn from the
altar with naked bosoms, outstretched hands, and dishevelled hair; and
we should piously believe that few could be tempted to prefer the vigils
of the harem to those of the monastery. Of these unfortunate Greeks,
of these domestic animals, whole strings were rudely driven through the
streets; and as the conquerors were eager to return for more prey, their
trembling pace was quickened with menaces and blows. At the same hour, a
similar rapine was exercised in all the churches and monasteries, in
all the palaces and habitations, of the capital; nor could any place,
however sacred or sequestered, protect the persons or the property of
the Greeks. Above sixty thousand of this devoted people were transported
from the city to the camp and fleet; exchanged or sold according to the
caprice or interest of their masters, and dispersed in remote servitude
through the provinces of the Ottoman empire. Among these we may notice
some remarkable characters. The historian Phranza, first chamberlain
and principal secretary, was involved with his family in the common lot.
After suffering four months the hardships of slavery, he recovered his
freedom: in the ensuing winter he ventured to Adrianople, and ransomed
his wife from the mir bashi, or master of the horse; but his two
children, in the flower of youth and beauty, had been seized for the
use of Mahomet himself. The daughter of Phranza died in the seraglio,
perhaps a virgin: his son, in the fifteenth year of his age, preferred
death to infamy, and was stabbed by the hand of the royal lover.81928192 See Phranza, l. iii. c. 20, 21. His expressions are positive: Ameras suâ manû jugulavit.... volebat enim eo turpiter et nefarie
abuti. Me miserum et infelicem! Yet he could only learn from report the bloody or impure scenes that were acted in the dark
recesses of the seraglio.
A
deed thus inhuman cannot surely be expiated by the taste and liberality
with which he released a Grecian matron and her two daughters, on
receiving a Latin doe From ode from Philelphus, who had chosen a wife in
that noble family.81938193 See Tiraboschi (tom. vi. P. i. p. 290) and Lancelot, (Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718.) I should be curious
to learn how he could praise the public enemy, whom he so often reviles as the most corrupt and inhuman of tyrants.
The pride or cruelty of Mahomet would have
been most sensibly gratified by the capture of a Roman legate; but the
dexterity of Cardinal Isidore eluded the search, and he escaped from
Galata in a plebeian habit.81948194 The commentaries of Pius II. suppose that he craftily placed his cardinal's hat on the head of a corpse which was cut off
and exposed in triumph, while the legate himself was bought and delivered as a captive of no value. The great Belgic Chronicle
adorns his escape with new adventures, which he suppressed (says Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No. 15) in his own letters, lest he
should lose the merit and reward of suffering for Christ. * Note: He was sold as a slave in Galata, according to Von Hammer,
p. 175. See the somewhat vague and declamatory letter of Cardinal Isidore, in the appendix to Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p.
653.—M.
The chain and entrance of the outward
harbor was still occupied by the Italian ships of merchandise and war.
They had signalized their valor in the siege: they embraced the moment
of retreat, while the Turkish mariners were dissipated in the pillage of
the city. When they hoisted sail, the beach was covered with a suppliant
and lamentable crowd; but the means of transportation were scanty: the
Venetians and Genoese selected their countrymen; and, notwithstanding
the fairest promises of the sultan, the inhabitants of Galata evacuated
their houses, and embarked with their most precious effects.

In the fall and the sack of great cities, an historian is condemned to
repeat the tale of uniform calamity: the same effects must be produced
by the same passions; and when those passions may be indulged without
control, small, alas! is the difference between civilized and savage
man. Amidst the vague exclamations of bigotry and hatred, the Turks are
not accused of a wanton or immoderate effusion of Christian blood: but
according to their maxims, (the maxims of antiquity,) the lives of the
vanquished were forfeited; and the legitimate reward of the conqueror
was derived from the service, the sale, or the ransom, of his captives
of both sexes.81958195 Busbequius expatiates with pleasure and applause on the rights of war, and the use of slavery, among the ancients and the
Turks, (de Legat. Turcicâ, epist. iii. p. 161.)
The wealth of Constantinople had been granted by
the sultan to his victorious troops; and the rapine of an hour is more
productive than the industry of years. But as no regular division was
attempted of the spoil, the respective shares were not determined by
merit; and the rewards of valor were stolen away by the followers of the
camp, who had declined the toil and danger of the battle. The narrative
of their depredations could not afford either amusement or instruction:
the total amount, in the last poverty of the empire, has been valued
at four millions of ducats;81968196 This sum is specified in a marginal note of Leunclavius, (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 211,) but in the distribution to Venice,
Genoa, Florence, and Ancona, of 50, 20, and 15,000 ducats, I suspect that a figure has been dropped. Even with the restitution,
the foreign property would scarcely exceed one fourth.
and of this sum a small part was
the property of the Venetians, the Genoese, the Florentines, and the
merchants of Ancona. Of these foreigners, the stock was improved in
quick and perpetual circulation: but the riches of the Greeks were
displayed in the idle ostentation of palaces and wardrobes, or deeply
buried in treasures of ingots and old coin, lest it should be demanded
at their hands for the defence of their country. The profanation
and plunder of the monasteries and churches excited the most tragic
complaints. The dome of St. Sophia itself, the earthly heaven, the
second firmament, the vehicle of the cherubim, the throne of the glory
of God,81978197 See the enthusiastic praises and lamentations of Phranza, (l. iii. c. 17.)
was despoiled of the oblation of ages; and the gold and
silver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal ornaments, were
most wickedly converted to the service of mankind. After the divine
images had been stripped of all that could be valuable to a profane eye,
the canvas, or the wood, was torn, or broken, or burnt, or trod under
foot, or applied, in the stables or the kitchen, to the vilest uses. The
example of sacrilege was imitated, however, from the Latin conquerors
of Constantinople; and the treatment which Christ, the Virgin, and the
saints, had sustained from the guilty Catholic, might be inflicted by
the zealous Mussulman on the monuments of idolatry. Perhaps, instead
of joining the public clamor, a philosopher will observe, that in the
decline of the arts the workmanship could not be more valuable than the
work, and that a fresh supply of visions and miracles would speedily be
renewed by the craft of the priests and the credulity of the people. He
will more seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which
were destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundred
and twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared;81988198 See Ducas, (c. 43,) and an epistle, July 15th, 1453, from Laurus Quirinus to Pope Nicholas V., (Hody de Græcis, p. 192, from
a MS. in the Cotton library.)
ten
volumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same ignominious
price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology, included the whole
works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest productions of the science
and literature of ancient Greece. We may reflect with pleasure that an
inestimable portion of our classic treasures was safely deposited in
Italy; and that the mechanics of a German town had invented an art which
derides the havoc of time and barbarism.

From the first hour81998199 The Julian Calendar, which reckons the days and hours from midnight, was used at Constantinople. But Ducas seems to understand
the natural hours from sunrise.
of the memorable twenty-ninth of May, disorder
and rapine prevailed in Constantinople, till the eighth hour of the same
day; when the sultan himself passed in triumph through the gate of St.
Romanus. He was attended by his viziers, bashaws, and guards, each of
whom (says a Byzantine historian) was robust as Hercules, dexterous as
Apollo, and equal in battle to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals.
The conqueror82008200 See the Turkish Annals, p. 329, and the Pandects of Leunclavius, p. 448.
gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange,
though splendid, appearance of the domes and palaces, so dissimilar from
the style of Oriental architecture. In the hippodrome, or atmeidan,
his eye was attracted by the twisted column of the three serpents;
and, as a trial of his strength, he shattered with his iron mace or
battle-axe the under jaw of one of these monsters,82018201 I have had occasion (vol. ii. p. 100) to mention this curious relic of Grecian antiquity.
which in the
eyes of the Turks were the idols or talismans of the city.82028202 Von Hammer passes over this circumstance, which is treated by Dr. Clarke (Travels, vol. ii. p. 58, 4to. edit,) as a fiction
of Thevenot. Chishull states that the monument was broken by some attendants of the Polish ambassador.—M.
At the
principal door of St. Sophia, he alighted from his horse, and entered
the dome; and such was his jealous regard for that monument of his
glory, that on observing a zealous Mussulman in the act of breaking the
marble pavement, he admonished him with his cimeter, that, if the
spoil and captives were granted to the soldiers, the public and
private buildings had been reserved for the prince. By his command the
metropolis of the Eastern church was transformed into a mosque: the rich
and portable instruments of superstition had been removed; the crosses
were thrown down; and the walls, which were covered with images and
mosaics, were washed and purified, and restored to a state of naked
simplicity. On the same day, or on the ensuing Friday, the muezin,
or crier, ascended the most lofty turret, and proclaimed the ezan, or
public invitation in the name of God and his prophet; the imam preached;
and Mahomet and Second performed the namaz of prayer and thanksgiving
on the great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately been
celebrated before the last of the Cæsars.82038203 We are obliged to Cantemir (p. 102) for the Turkish account of the conversion of St. Sophia, so bitterly deplored by Phranza
and Ducas. It is amusing enough to observe, in what opposite lights the same object appears to a Mussulman and a Christian
eye.
From St. Sophia he
proceeded to the august, but desolate mansion of a hundred successors of
the great Constantine, but which in a few hours had been stripped of the
pomp of royalty. A melancholy reflection on the vicissitudes of human
greatness forced itself on his mind; and he repeated an elegant distich
of Persian poetry: "The spider has wove his web in the Imperial palace;
and the owl hath sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab."82048204 This distich, which Cantemir gives in the original, derives new beauties from the application. It was thus that Scipio repeated,
in the sack of Carthage, the famous prophecy of Homer. The same generous feeling carried the mind of the conqueror to the
past or the future.

Yet his mind was not satisfied, nor did the victory seem complete, till
he was informed of the fate of Constantine; whether he had escaped, or
been made prisoner, or had fallen in the battle. Two Janizaries claimed
the honor and reward of his death: the body, under a heap of slain, was
discovered by the golden eagles embroidered on his shoes; the Greeks
acknowledged, with tears, the head of their late emperor; and, after
exposing the bloody trophy,82058205 I cannot believe with Ducas (see Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No. 13) that Mahomet sent round Persia, Arabia, &c., the head of the
Greek emperor: he would surely content himself with a trophy less inhuman.
Mahomet bestowed on his rival the honors
of a decent funeral. After his decease, Lucas Notaras, great duke,82068206 Phranza was the personal enemy of the great duke; nor could time, or death, or his own retreat to a monastery, extort a feeling
of sympathy or forgiveness. Ducas is inclined to praise and pity the martyr; Chalcondyles is neuter, but we are indebted to
him for the hint of the Greek conspiracy.
and first minister of the empire, was the most important prisoner. When
he offered his person and his treasures at the foot of the throne, "And
why," said the indignant sultan, "did you not employ these treasures in
the defence of your prince and country?"—"They were yours," answered
the slave; "God had reserved them for your hands."—"If he reserved them
for me," replied the despot, "how have you presumed to withhold them so
long by a fruitless and fatal resistance?" The great duke alleged the
obstinacy of the strangers, and some secret encouragement from the
Turkish vizier; and from this perilous interview he was at length
dismissed with the assurance of pardon and protection. Mahomet
condescended to visit his wife, a venerable princess oppressed with
sickness and grief; and his consolation for her misfortunes was in the
most tender strain of humanity and filial reverence. A similar clemency
was extended to the principal officers of state, of whom several were
ransomed at his expense; and during some days he declared himself the
friend and father of the vanquished people. But the scene was soon
changed; and before his departure, the hippodrome streamed with the
blood of his noblest captives. His perfidious cruelty is execrated
by the Christians: they adorn with the colors of heroic martyrdom the
execution of the great duke and his two sons; and his death is ascribed
to the generous refusal of delivering his children to the tyrant's
lust.82078207 Von Hammer relates this undoubtingly, apparently on good authority, p. 559.—M.
Yet a Byzantine historian has dropped an unguarded word
of conspiracy, deliverance, and Italian succor: such treason may be
glorious; but the rebel who bravely ventures, has justly forfeited his
life; nor should we blame a conqueror for destroying the enemies whom
he can no longer trust. On the eighteenth of June the victorious sultan
returned to Adrianople; and smiled at the base and hollow embassies of
the Christian princes, who viewed their approaching ruin in the fall of
the Eastern empire.

Constantinople had been left naked and desolate, without a prince or
a people. But she could not be despoiled of the incomparable situation
which marks her for the metropolis of a great empire; and the genius
of the place will ever triumph over the accidents of time and fortune.
Boursa and Adrianople, the ancient seats of the Ottomans, sunk into
provincial towns; and Mahomet the Second established his own residence,
and that of his successors, on the same commanding spot which had been
chosen by Constantine.82088208 For the restitution of Constantinople and the Turkish foundations, see Cantemir, (p. 102—109,) Ducas, (c. 42,) with Thevenot,
Tournefort, and the rest of our modern travellers. From a gigantic picture of the greatness, population, &c., of Constantinople
and the Ottoman empire, (Abrégé de l'Histoire Ottomane, tom. i. p. 16—21,) we may learn, that in the year 1586 the Moslems
were less numerous in the capital than the Christians, or even the Jews.
The fortifications of Galata, which might
afford a shelter to the Latins, were prudently destroyed; but the damage
of the Turkish cannon was soon repaired; and before the month of August,
great quantities of lime had been burnt for the restoration of the
walls of the capital. As the entire property of the soil and buildings,
whether public or private, or profane or sacred, was now transferred
to the conqueror, he first separated a space of eight furlongs from the
point of the triangle for the establishment of his seraglio or palace.
It is here, in the bosom of luxury, that the Grand Signor (as he has
been emphatically named by the Italians) appears to reign over Europe
and Asia; but his person on the shores of the Bosphorus may not always
be secure from the insults of a hostile navy. In the new character of a
mosque, the cathedral of St. Sophia was endowed with an ample revenue,
crowned with lofty minarets, and surrounded with groves and fountains,
for the devotion and refreshment of the Moslems. The same model was
imitated in the jami, or royal mosques; and the first of these was
built, by Mahomet himself, on the ruins of the church of the holy
apostles, and the tombs of the Greek emperors. On the third day after
the conquest, the grave of Abu Ayub, or Job, who had fallen in the
first siege of the Arabs, was revealed in a vision; and it is before the
sepulchre of the martyr that the new sultans are girded with the
sword of empire.82098209 The Turbé, or sepulchral monument of Abu Ayub, is described and engraved in the Tableau Générale de l'Empire Ottoman, (Paris 1787,
in large folio,) a work of less use, perhaps, than magnificence, (tom. i. p. 305, 306.)
Constantinople no longer appertains to the Roman
historian; nor shall I enumerate the civil and religious edifices that
were profaned or erected by its Turkish masters: the population was
speedily renewed; and before the end of September, five thousand
families of Anatolia and Romania had obeyed the royal mandate, which
enjoined them, under pain of death, to occupy their new habitations
in the capital. The throne of Mahomet was guarded by the numbers and
fidelity of his Moslem subjects: but his rational policy aspired to
collect the remnant of the Greeks; and they returned in crowds, as
soon as they were assured of their lives, their liberties, and the
free exercise of their religion. In the election and investiture of
a patriarch, the ceremonial of the Byzantine court was revived and
imitated. With a mixture of satisfaction and horror, they beheld the
sultan on his throne; who delivered into the hands of Gennadius the
crosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his ecclesiastical office; who
conducted the patriarch to the gate of the seraglio, presented him with
a horse richly caparisoned, and directed the viziers and bashaws to lead
him to the palace which had been allotted for his residence.82108210 Phranza (l. iii. c. 19) relates the ceremony, which has possibly been adorned in the Greek reports to each other, and to
the Latins. The fact is confirmed by Emanuel Malaxus, who wrote, in vulgar Greek, the History of the Patriarchs after the
taking of Constantinople, inserted in the Turco-Græcia of Crusius, (l. v. p. 106—184.) But the most patient reader will not
believe that Mahomet adopted the Catholic form, "Sancta Trinitas quæ mihi donavit imperium te in patriarcham novæ Romæ deligit."
The
churches of Constantinople were shared between the two religions: their
limits were marked; and, till it was infringed by Selim, the grandson
of Mahomet, the Greeks82118211 From the Turco-Græcia of Crusius, &c. Spondanus (A.D. 1453, No. 21, 1458, No. 16) describes the slavery and domestic quarrels
of the Greek church. The patriarch who succeeded Gennadius threw himself in despair into a well.
enjoyed above sixty years the benefit of this
equal partition. Encouraged by the ministers of the divan, who wished to
elude the fanaticism of the sultan, the Christian advocates presumed
to allege that this division had been an act, not of generosity, but of
justice; not a concession, but a compact; and that if one half of the
city had been taken by storm, the other moiety had surrendered on the
faith of a sacred capitulation. The original grant had indeed been
consumed by fire: but the loss was supplied by the testimony of three
aged Janizaries who remembered the transaction; and their venal oaths
are of more weight in the opinion of Cantemir, than the positive and
unanimous consent of the history of the times.82128212 Cantemir (p. 101—105) insists on the unanimous consent of the Turkish historians, ancient as well as modern, and argues,
that they would not have violated the truth to diminish their national glory, since it is esteemed more honorable to take
a city by force than by composition. But, 1. I doubt this consent, since he quotes no particular historian, and the Turkish
Annals of Leunclavius affirm, without exception, that Mahomet took Constantinople per vim, (p. 329.) 2 The same argument may be turned in favor of the Greeks of the times, who would not have forgotten this honorable
and salutary treaty. Voltaire, as usual, prefers the Turks to the Christians.

The remaining fragments of the Greek kingdom in Europe and Asia I shall
abandon to the Turkish arms; but the final extinction of the two last
dynasties82138213 For the genealogy and fall of the Comneni of Trebizond, see Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p. 195;) for the last Palæologi, the same
accurate antiquarian, (p. 244, 247, 248.) The Palæologi of Montferrat were not extinct till the next century; but they had
forgotten their Greek origin and kindred.
which have reigned in Constantinople should terminate the
decline and fall of the Roman empire in the East. The despots of the
Morea, Demetrius and Thomas,82148214 In the worthless story of the disputes and misfortunes of the two brothers, Phranza (l. iii. c. 21—30) is too partial on
the side of Thomas Ducas (c. 44, 45) is too brief, and Chalcondyles (l. viii. ix. x.) too diffuse and digressive.
the two surviving brothers of the name
of Palæologus, were astonished by the death of the emperor Constantine,
and the ruin of the monarchy. Hopeless of defence, they prepared, with
the noble Greeks who adhered to their fortune, to seek a refuge
in Italy, beyond the reach of the Ottoman thunder. Their first
apprehensions were dispelled by the victorious sultan, who contented
himself with a tribute of twelve thousand ducats; and while his ambition
explored the continent and the islands, in search of prey, he indulged
the Morea in a respite of seven years. But this respite was a period
of grief, discord, and misery. The hexamilion, the rampart of the
Isthmus, so often raised and so often subverted, could not long be
defended by three hundred Italian archers: the keys of Corinth were
seized by the Turks: they returned from their summer excursions with a
train of captives and spoil; and the complaints of the injured Greeks
were heard with indifference and disdain. The Albanians, a vagrant tribe
of shepherds and robbers, filled the peninsula with rapine and murder:
the two despots implored the dangerous and humiliating aid of a
neighboring bashaw; and when he had quelled the revolt, his lessons
inculcated the rule of their future conduct. Neither the ties of blood,
nor the oaths which they repeatedly pledged in the communion and before
the altar, nor the stronger pressure of necessity, could reconcile or
suspend their domestic quarrels. They ravaged each other's patrimony
with fire and sword: the alms and succors of the West were consumed
in civil hostility; and their power was only exerted in savage and
arbitrary executions. The distress and revenge of the weaker rival
invoked their supreme lord; and, in the season of maturity and revenge,
Mahomet declared himself the friend of Demetrius, and marched into
the Morea with an irresistible force. When he had taken possession of
Sparta, "You are too weak," said the sultan, "to control this turbulent
province: I will take your daughter to my bed; and you shall pass the
remainder of your life in security and honor." Demetrius sighed and
obeyed; surrendered his daughter and his castles; followed to Adrianople
his sovereign and his son; and received for his own maintenance, and
that of his followers, a city in Thrace and the adjacent isles of
Imbros, Lemnos, and Samothrace. He was joined the next year by a
companion82158215 Kalo-Johannes, the predecessor of David his brother, the last emperor of Trebizond, had attempted to organize a confederacy
against Mahomet it comprehended Hassan Bei, sultan of Mesopotamia, the Christian princes of Georgia and Iberia, the emir of
Sinope, and the sultan of Caramania. The negotiations were interrupted by his sudden death, A.D. 1458. Fallmerayer, p. 257—260.—M.
of misfortune, the last of the Comnenian race, who, after
the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, had founded a new empire
on the coast of the Black Sea.82168216 See the loss or conquest of Trebizond in Chalcondyles, (l. ix. p. 263—266,) Ducas, (c. 45,) Phranza, (l. iii. c. 27,) and
Cantemir, (p. 107.)
In the progress of his Anatolian
conquest, Mahomet invested with a fleet and army the capital of
David, who presumed to style himself emperor of Trebizond;82178217 Though Tournefort (tom. iii. lettre xvii. p. 179) speaks of Trebizond as mal peuplée, Peysonnel, the latest and most accurate
observer, can find 100,000 inhabitants, (Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 72, and for the province, p. 53—90.) Its prosperity
and trade are perpetually disturbed by the factious quarrels of two odas of Janizaries, in one which 30,000 Lazi are commonly enrolled, (Mémoires de Tott, tom. iii. p. 16, 17.)
and the
negotiation was comprised in a short and peremptory question, "Will you
secure your life and treasures by resigning your kingdom? or had you
rather forfeit your kingdom, your treasures, and your life?" The feeble
Comnenus was subdued by his own fears,82188218 According to the Georgian account of these transactions, (translated by M. Brosset, additions to Le Beau, vol. xxi. p. 325,)
the emperor of Trebizond humbly entreated the sultan to have the goodness to marry one of his daughters.—M.
and the example of a Mussulman
neighbor, the prince of Sinope,82198219 Ismael Beg, prince of Sinope or Sinople, was possessed (chiefly from his copper mines) of a revenue of 200,000 ducats, (Chalcond.
l. ix. p. 258, 259.) Peysonnel (Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 100) ascribes to the modern city 60,000 inhabitants.
This account seems enormous; yet it is by trading with people that we become acquainted with their wealth and numbers.
who, on a similar summons, had
yielded a fortified city, with four hundred cannon and ten or twelve
thousand soldiers. The capitulation of Trebizond was faithfully
performed:82208220 M. Boissonade has published, in the fifth volume of his Anecdota Græca (p. 387, 401.) a very interesting letter from George
Amiroutzes, protovestiarius of Trebizond, to Bessarion, describing the surrender of Trebizond, and the fate of its chief inhabitants.—M.
and the emperor, with his family, was transported to a
castle in Romania; but on a slight suspicion of corresponding with the
Persian king, David, and the whole Comnenian race, were sacrificed to
the jealousy or avarice of the conqueror.82218221 See in Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 60, the striking account of the mother, the empress Helena the Cantacuzene, who, in defiance
of the edict, like that of Creon in the Greek tragedy, dug the grave for her murdered children with her own hand, and sank
into it herself.—M.
Nor could the name
of father long protect the unfortunate Demetrius from exile and
confiscation; his abject submission moved the pity and contempt of
the sultan; his followers were transplanted to Constantinople; and his
poverty was alleviated by a pension of fifty thousand aspers, till a
monastic habit and a tardy death released Palæologus from an earthly
master. It is not easy to pronounce whether the servitude of Demetrius,
or the exile of his brother Thomas,82228222 Spondanus (from Gobelin Comment. Pii II. l. v.) relates the arrival and reception of the despot Thomas at Rome,. (A.D. 1461
No. NO. 3.)
be the most inglorious. On the
conquest of the Morea, the despot escaped to Corfu, and from thence to
Italy, with some naked adherents: his name, his sufferings, and the
head of the apostle St. Andrew, entitled him to the hospitality of
the Vatican; and his misery was prolonged by a pension of six thousand
ducats from the pope and cardinals. His two sons, Andrew and Manuel,
were educated in Italy; but the eldest, contemptible to his enemies and
burdensome to his friends, was degraded by the baseness of his life
and marriage. A title was his sole inheritance; and that inheritance
he successively sold to the kings of France and Arragon.82238223 By an act dated A.D. 1494, Sept. 6, and lately transmitted from the archives of the Capitol to the royal library of Paris,
the despot Andrew Palæologus, reserving the Morea, and stipulating some private advantages, conveys to Charles VIII., king
of France, the empires of Constantinople and Trebizond, (Spondanus, A.D. 1495, No. 2.) M. D. Foncemagne (Mém. de l'Académie
des Inscriptions, tom. xvii. p. 539—578) has bestowed a dissertation on his national title, of which he had obtained a copy
from Rome.
During his
transient prosperity, Charles the Eighth was ambitious of joining the
empire of the East with the kingdom of Naples: in a public festival,
he assumed the appellation and the purple of Augustus: the Greeks
rejoiced and the Ottoman already trembled, at the approach of the French
chivalry.82248224 See Philippe de Comines, (l. vii. c. 14,) who reckons with pleasure the number of Greeks who were prepared to rise, 60 miles
of an easy navigation, eighteen days' journey from Valona to Constantinople, &c. On this occasion the Turkish empire was saved
by the policy of Venice.
Manuel Palæologus, the second son, was tempted to revisit
his native country: his return might be grateful, and could not be
dangerous, to the Porte: he was maintained at Constantinople in safety
and ease; and an honorable train of Christians and Moslems attended him
to the grave. If there be some animals of so generous a nature that they
refuse to propagate in a domestic state, the last of the Imperial race
must be ascribed to an inferior kind: he accepted from the sultan's
liberality two beautiful females; and his surviving son was lost in the
habit and religion of a Turkish slave.

The importance of Constantinople was felt and magnified in its loss: the
pontificate of Nicholas the Fifth, however peaceful and prosperous, was
dishonored by the fall of the Eastern empire; and the grief and terror
of the Latins revived, or seemed to revive, the old enthusiasm of the
crusades. In one of the most distant countries of the West, Philip
duke of Burgundy entertained, at Lisle in Flanders, an assembly of his
nobles; and the pompous pageants of the feast were skilfully adapted
to their fancy and feelings.82258225 See the original feast in Olivier de la Marche, (Mémoires, P. i. c. 29, 30,) with the abstract and observations of M. de
Ste. Palaye, (Mémoires sur la Chevalerie, tom. i. P. iii. p. 182—185.) The peacock and the pheasant were distinguished as
royal birds.
In the midst of the banquet a gigantic
Saracen entered the hall, leading a fictitious elephant with a castle on
his back: a matron in a mourning robe, the symbol of religion, was seen
to issue from the castle: she deplored her oppression, and accused the
slowness of her champions: the principal herald of the golden fleece
advanced, bearing on his fist a live pheasant, which, according to
the rites of chivalry, he presented to the duke. At this extraordinary
summons, Philip, a wise and aged prince, engaged his person and powers
in the holy war against the Turks: his example was imitated by the
barons and knights of the assembly: they swore to God, the Virgin,
the ladies and the pheasant; and their particular vows were not less
extravagant than the general sanction of their oath. But the performance
was made to depend on some future and foreign contingency; and during
twelve years, till the last hour of his life, the duke of Burgundy might
be scrupulously, and perhaps sincerely, on the eve of his departure. Had
every breast glowed with the same ardor; had the union of the Christians
corresponded with their bravery; had every country, from Sweden82268226 It was found by an actual enumeration, that Sweden, Gothland, and Finland, contained 1,800,000 fighting men, and consequently
were far more populous than at present.
to
Naples, supplied a just proportion of cavalry and infantry, of men
and money, it is indeed probable that Constantinople would have
been delivered, and that the Turks might have been chased beyond the
Hellespont or the Euphrates. But the secretary of the emperor, who
composed every epistle, and attended every meeting, Æneas Sylvius,82278227 In the year 1454, Spondanus has given, from Æneas Sylvius, a view of the state of Europe, enriched with his own observations.
That valuable annalist, and the Italian Muratori, will continue the series of events from the year 1453 to 1481, the end of
Mahomet's life, and of this chapter.
a statesman and orator, describes from his own experience the repugnant
state and spirit of Christendom. "It is a body," says he, "without a
head; a republic without laws or magistrates. The pope and the emperor
may shine as lofty titles, as splendid images; but they are unable
to command, and none are willing to obey: every state has a separate
prince, and every prince has a separate interest. What eloquence could
unite so many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard?
Could they be assembled in arms, who would dare to assume the office of
general? What order could be maintained?—what military discipline? Who
would undertake to feed such an enormous multitude? Who would understand
their various languages, or direct their stranger and incompatible
manners? What mortal could reconcile the English with the French, Genoa
with Arragon the Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia? If a
small number enlisted in the holy war, they must be overthrown by the
infidels; if many, by their own weight and confusion." Yet the same
Æneas, when he was raised to the papal throne, under the name of Pius
the Second, devoted his life to the prosecution of the Turkish war.
In the council of Mantua he excited some sparks of a false or feeble
enthusiasm; but when the pontiff appeared at Ancona, to embark in person
with the troops, engagements vanished in excuses; a precise day was
adjourned to an indefinite term; and his effective army consisted of
some German pilgrims, whom he was obliged to disband with indulgences
and arms. Regardless of futurity, his successors and the powers of Italy
were involved in the schemes of present and domestic ambition; and
the distance or proximity of each object determined in their eyes its
apparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of their interest would have
taught them to maintain a defensive and naval war against the common
enemy; and the support of Scanderbeg and his brave Albanians might have
prevented the subsequent invasion of the kingdom of Naples. The siege
and sack of Otranto by the Turks diffused a general consternation; and
Pope Sixtus was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, when the storm
was instantly dispelled by the death of Mahomet the Second, in the
fifty-first year of his age.82288228 Besides the two annalists, the reader may consult Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. iii. p. 449—455) for the Turkish invasion
of the kingdom of Naples. For the reign and conquests of Mahomet II., I have occasionally used the Memorie Istoriche de Monarchi
Ottomanni di Giovanni Sagredo, (Venezia, 1677, in 4to.) In peace and war, the Turks have ever engaged the attention of the
republic of Venice. All her despatches and archives were open to a procurator of St. Mark, and Sagredo is not contemptible
either in sense or style. Yet he too bitterly hates the infidels: he is ignorant of their language and manners; and his narrative,
which allows only 70 pages to Mahomet II., (p. 69—140,) becomes more copious and authentic as he approaches the years 1640
and 1644, the term of the historic labors of John Sagredo.
His lofty genius aspired to the
conquest of Italy: he was possessed of a strong city and a capacious
harbor; and the same reign might have been decorated with the trophies
of the New and the Ancient Rome.82298229 As I am now taking an everlasting farewell of the Greek empire, I shall briefly mention the great collection of Byzantine
writers whose names and testimonies have been successively repeated in this work. The Greeks presses of Aldus and the Italians
were confined to the classics of a better age; and the first rude editions of Procopius, Agathias, Cedrenus, Zonaras, &c.,
were published by the learned diligence of the Germans. The whole Byzantine series (xxxvi. volumes in folio) has gradually
issued (A.D. 1648, &c.) from the royal press of the Louvre, with some collateral aid from Rome and Leipsic; but the Venetian
edition, (A.D. 1729,) though cheaper and more copious, is not less inferior in correctness than in magnificence to that of
Paris. The merits of the French editors are various; but the value of Anna Comnena, Cinnamus, Villehardouin, &c., is enhanced
by the historical notes of Charles de Fresne du Cange. His supplemental works, the Greek Glossary, the Constantinopolis Christiana,
the Familiæ Byzantinæ, diffuse a steady light over the darkness of the Lower Empire. * Note: The new edition of the Byzantines,
projected by Niebuhr, and continued under the patronage of the Prussian government, is the most convenient in size, and contains
some authors (Leo Diaconus, Johannes Lydus, Corippus, the new fragment of Dexippus, Eunapius, &c., discovered by Mai) which
could not be comprised in the former collections; but the names of such editors as Bekker, the Dindorfs, &c., raised hopes
of something more than the mere republication of the text, and the notes of former editors. Little, I regret to say, has been
added of annotation, and in some cases, the old incorrect versions have been retained.—M.

8192 See Phranza, l. iii. c. 20, 21. His expressions are positive: Ameras suâ manû jugulavit.... volebat enim eo turpiter et nefarie
abuti. Me miserum et infelicem! Yet he could only learn from report the bloody or impure scenes that were acted in the dark
recesses of the seraglio.

8193 See Tiraboschi (tom. vi. P. i. p. 290) and Lancelot, (Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718.) I should be curious
to learn how he could praise the public enemy, whom he so often reviles as the most corrupt and inhuman of tyrants.

8194 The commentaries of Pius II. suppose that he craftily placed his cardinal's hat on the head of a corpse which was cut off
and exposed in triumph, while the legate himself was bought and delivered as a captive of no value. The great Belgic Chronicle
adorns his escape with new adventures, which he suppressed (says Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No. 15) in his own letters, lest he
should lose the merit and reward of suffering for Christ. * Note: He was sold as a slave in Galata, according to Von Hammer,
p. 175. See the somewhat vague and declamatory letter of Cardinal Isidore, in the appendix to Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p.
653.—M.

8195 Busbequius expatiates with pleasure and applause on the rights of war, and the use of slavery, among the ancients and the
Turks, (de Legat. Turcicâ, epist. iii. p. 161.)

8196 This sum is specified in a marginal note of Leunclavius, (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 211,) but in the distribution to Venice,
Genoa, Florence, and Ancona, of 50, 20, and 15,000 ducats, I suspect that a figure has been dropped. Even with the restitution,
the foreign property would scarcely exceed one fourth.

8197 See the enthusiastic praises and lamentations of Phranza, (l. iii. c. 17.)

8198 See Ducas, (c. 43,) and an epistle, July 15th, 1453, from Laurus Quirinus to Pope Nicholas V., (Hody de Græcis, p. 192, from
a MS. in the Cotton library.)

8199 The Julian Calendar, which reckons the days and hours from midnight, was used at Constantinople. But Ducas seems to understand
the natural hours from sunrise.

8200 See the Turkish Annals, p. 329, and the Pandects of Leunclavius, p. 448.

8201 I have had occasion (vol. ii. p. 100) to mention this curious relic of Grecian antiquity.

8202 Von Hammer passes over this circumstance, which is treated by Dr. Clarke (Travels, vol. ii. p. 58, 4to. edit,) as a fiction
of Thevenot. Chishull states that the monument was broken by some attendants of the Polish ambassador.—M.

8203 We are obliged to Cantemir (p. 102) for the Turkish account of the conversion of St. Sophia, so bitterly deplored by Phranza
and Ducas. It is amusing enough to observe, in what opposite lights the same object appears to a Mussulman and a Christian
eye.

8204 This distich, which Cantemir gives in the original, derives new beauties from the application. It was thus that Scipio repeated,
in the sack of Carthage, the famous prophecy of Homer. The same generous feeling carried the mind of the conqueror to the
past or the future.

8205 I cannot believe with Ducas (see Spondanus, A.D. 1453, No. 13) that Mahomet sent round Persia, Arabia, &c., the head of the
Greek emperor: he would surely content himself with a trophy less inhuman.

8206 Phranza was the personal enemy of the great duke; nor could time, or death, or his own retreat to a monastery, extort a feeling
of sympathy or forgiveness. Ducas is inclined to praise and pity the martyr; Chalcondyles is neuter, but we are indebted to
him for the hint of the Greek conspiracy.

8208 For the restitution of Constantinople and the Turkish foundations, see Cantemir, (p. 102—109,) Ducas, (c. 42,) with Thevenot,
Tournefort, and the rest of our modern travellers. From a gigantic picture of the greatness, population, &c., of Constantinople
and the Ottoman empire, (Abrégé de l'Histoire Ottomane, tom. i. p. 16—21,) we may learn, that in the year 1586 the Moslems
were less numerous in the capital than the Christians, or even the Jews.

8209 The Turbé, or sepulchral monument of Abu Ayub, is described and engraved in the Tableau Générale de l'Empire Ottoman, (Paris 1787,
in large folio,) a work of less use, perhaps, than magnificence, (tom. i. p. 305, 306.)

8210 Phranza (l. iii. c. 19) relates the ceremony, which has possibly been adorned in the Greek reports to each other, and to
the Latins. The fact is confirmed by Emanuel Malaxus, who wrote, in vulgar Greek, the History of the Patriarchs after the
taking of Constantinople, inserted in the Turco-Græcia of Crusius, (l. v. p. 106—184.) But the most patient reader will not
believe that Mahomet adopted the Catholic form, "Sancta Trinitas quæ mihi donavit imperium te in patriarcham novæ Romæ deligit."

8211 From the Turco-Græcia of Crusius, &c. Spondanus (A.D. 1453, No. 21, 1458, No. 16) describes the slavery and domestic quarrels
of the Greek church. The patriarch who succeeded Gennadius threw himself in despair into a well.

8212 Cantemir (p. 101—105) insists on the unanimous consent of the Turkish historians, ancient as well as modern, and argues,
that they would not have violated the truth to diminish their national glory, since it is esteemed more honorable to take
a city by force than by composition. But, 1. I doubt this consent, since he quotes no particular historian, and the Turkish
Annals of Leunclavius affirm, without exception, that Mahomet took Constantinople per vim, (p. 329.) 2 The same argument may be turned in favor of the Greeks of the times, who would not have forgotten this honorable
and salutary treaty. Voltaire, as usual, prefers the Turks to the Christians.

8213 For the genealogy and fall of the Comneni of Trebizond, see Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p. 195;) for the last Palæologi, the same
accurate antiquarian, (p. 244, 247, 248.) The Palæologi of Montferrat were not extinct till the next century; but they had
forgotten their Greek origin and kindred.

8214 In the worthless story of the disputes and misfortunes of the two brothers, Phranza (l. iii. c. 21—30) is too partial on
the side of Thomas Ducas (c. 44, 45) is too brief, and Chalcondyles (l. viii. ix. x.) too diffuse and digressive.

8215 Kalo-Johannes, the predecessor of David his brother, the last emperor of Trebizond, had attempted to organize a confederacy
against Mahomet it comprehended Hassan Bei, sultan of Mesopotamia, the Christian princes of Georgia and Iberia, the emir of
Sinope, and the sultan of Caramania. The negotiations were interrupted by his sudden death, A.D. 1458. Fallmerayer, p. 257—260.—M.

8217 Though Tournefort (tom. iii. lettre xvii. p. 179) speaks of Trebizond as mal peuplée, Peysonnel, the latest and most accurate
observer, can find 100,000 inhabitants, (Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 72, and for the province, p. 53—90.) Its prosperity
and trade are perpetually disturbed by the factious quarrels of two odas of Janizaries, in one which 30,000 Lazi are commonly enrolled, (Mémoires de Tott, tom. iii. p. 16, 17.)

8218 According to the Georgian account of these transactions, (translated by M. Brosset, additions to Le Beau, vol. xxi. p. 325,)
the emperor of Trebizond humbly entreated the sultan to have the goodness to marry one of his daughters.—M.

8219 Ismael Beg, prince of Sinope or Sinople, was possessed (chiefly from his copper mines) of a revenue of 200,000 ducats, (Chalcond.
l. ix. p. 258, 259.) Peysonnel (Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 100) ascribes to the modern city 60,000 inhabitants.
This account seems enormous; yet it is by trading with people that we become acquainted with their wealth and numbers.

8220 M. Boissonade has published, in the fifth volume of his Anecdota Græca (p. 387, 401.) a very interesting letter from George
Amiroutzes, protovestiarius of Trebizond, to Bessarion, describing the surrender of Trebizond, and the fate of its chief inhabitants.—M.

8221 See in Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 60, the striking account of the mother, the empress Helena the Cantacuzene, who, in defiance
of the edict, like that of Creon in the Greek tragedy, dug the grave for her murdered children with her own hand, and sank
into it herself.—M.

8223 By an act dated A.D. 1494, Sept. 6, and lately transmitted from the archives of the Capitol to the royal library of Paris,
the despot Andrew Palæologus, reserving the Morea, and stipulating some private advantages, conveys to Charles VIII., king
of France, the empires of Constantinople and Trebizond, (Spondanus, A.D. 1495, No. 2.) M. D. Foncemagne (Mém. de l'Académie
des Inscriptions, tom. xvii. p. 539—578) has bestowed a dissertation on his national title, of which he had obtained a copy
from Rome.

8224 See Philippe de Comines, (l. vii. c. 14,) who reckons with pleasure the number of Greeks who were prepared to rise, 60 miles
of an easy navigation, eighteen days' journey from Valona to Constantinople, &c. On this occasion the Turkish empire was saved
by the policy of Venice.

8225 See the original feast in Olivier de la Marche, (Mémoires, P. i. c. 29, 30,) with the abstract and observations of M. de
Ste. Palaye, (Mémoires sur la Chevalerie, tom. i. P. iii. p. 182—185.) The peacock and the pheasant were distinguished as
royal birds.

8226 It was found by an actual enumeration, that Sweden, Gothland, and Finland, contained 1,800,000 fighting men, and consequently
were far more populous than at present.

8227 In the year 1454, Spondanus has given, from Æneas Sylvius, a view of the state of Europe, enriched with his own observations.
That valuable annalist, and the Italian Muratori, will continue the series of events from the year 1453 to 1481, the end of
Mahomet's life, and of this chapter.

8228 Besides the two annalists, the reader may consult Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. iii. p. 449—455) for the Turkish invasion
of the kingdom of Naples. For the reign and conquests of Mahomet II., I have occasionally used the Memorie Istoriche de Monarchi
Ottomanni di Giovanni Sagredo, (Venezia, 1677, in 4to.) In peace and war, the Turks have ever engaged the attention of the
republic of Venice. All her despatches and archives were open to a procurator of St. Mark, and Sagredo is not contemptible
either in sense or style. Yet he too bitterly hates the infidels: he is ignorant of their language and manners; and his narrative,
which allows only 70 pages to Mahomet II., (p. 69—140,) becomes more copious and authentic as he approaches the years 1640
and 1644, the term of the historic labors of John Sagredo.

8229 As I am now taking an everlasting farewell of the Greek empire, I shall briefly mention the great collection of Byzantine
writers whose names and testimonies have been successively repeated in this work. The Greeks presses of Aldus and the Italians
were confined to the classics of a better age; and the first rude editions of Procopius, Agathias, Cedrenus, Zonaras, &c.,
were published by the learned diligence of the Germans. The whole Byzantine series (xxxvi. volumes in folio) has gradually
issued (A.D. 1648, &c.) from the royal press of the Louvre, with some collateral aid from Rome and Leipsic; but the Venetian
edition, (A.D. 1729,) though cheaper and more copious, is not less inferior in correctness than in magnificence to that of
Paris. The merits of the French editors are various; but the value of Anna Comnena, Cinnamus, Villehardouin, &c., is enhanced
by the historical notes of Charles de Fresne du Cange. His supplemental works, the Greek Glossary, the Constantinopolis Christiana,
the Familiæ Byzantinæ, diffuse a steady light over the darkness of the Lower Empire. * Note: The new edition of the Byzantines,
projected by Niebuhr, and continued under the patronage of the Prussian government, is the most convenient in size, and contains
some authors (Leo Diaconus, Johannes Lydus, Corippus, the new fragment of Dexippus, Eunapius, &c., discovered by Mai) which
could not be comprised in the former collections; but the names of such editors as Bekker, the Dindorfs, &c., raised hopes
of something more than the mere republication of the text, and the notes of former editors. Little, I regret to say, has been
added of annotation, and in some cases, the old incorrect versions have been retained.—M.